This has been my soap box for a while. We are experience deep polarization at a time when the parties have never been weaker. When a party stops performing its institutional responsibilities you get more extreme candidates on both sides who represent small but loud factions. These then don't represent most people. Thus more democracy in the primary systems gives less democratic candidates (less representative of most people). Look at 2016, most republicans I know did not want Trump (he didn't win outright majorities in the primaries until the very end). Most democrats didn't want Hillary. But we got stuck with both. BRING BACK THE SMOKE FILLED ROOMS!
This has been my soap box for a while. We are experience deep polarization at a time when the parties have never been weaker. When a party stops performing its institutional responsibilities you get more extreme candidates on both sides who represent small but loud factions. These then don't represent most people. Thus more democracy in the primary systems gives less democratic candidates (less representative of most people). Look at 2016, most republicans I know did not want Trump (he didn't win outright majorities in the primaries until the very end). Most democrats didn't want Hillary. But we got stuck with both. BRING BACK THE SMOKE FILLED ROOMS!